


5 Times Eames Surprised Arthur (+ 1 Time It Was the Other Way Around)

by dandalfthedisco



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: 5+1 Things, BAMF Eames, Developing Relationship, Excessive use of italics, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, Sculptor Eames, Tom Hardy's tux at the 2016 Oscars, bc that suit deserves its own tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 08:53:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9812081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandalfthedisco/pseuds/dandalfthedisco
Summary: Working title: SURPRISE, MOTHERFUCKER.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was started after the @inceptiversarysocial Inception watch party in February 2016. Yes, that’s a year ago. :headdesk:
> 
> Special thanks to [Kate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kate_the_reader/pseuds/kate_the_reader) and [flosculatory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flosculatory/pseuds/flosculatory) for getting me started on this way back when, [oceaxe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceaxe/pseuds/oceaxe) and [Amy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swtalmnd/pseuds/swtalmnd) for holding my hand and assuring me it’s not shit, [Corinne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenThayet/pseuds/QueenThayet) and Kate again for being wizards among betas, my dear ex-flatmate M (no, not the fandom one) for providing the line with the cactus, and last but definitely not least, every single person in the Inceptiversarysocial chat/Slack who’s had to listen to me complain about this thing for the past _50_ weeks!

**1.**

 

It’s not easy to surprise Arthur.

This isn’t Arthur having an over-inflated ego; it is simply a fact. The Earth is round(ish), polyester-rayon blend suits should all be burned, and Arthur has an uncanny ability to gauge the competence of a potential team member within the first ten seconds of their acquaintance. So when Arthur meets Eames for the first time and nearly turns around and walks straight back out of the restaurant (but decides to stay because their client is footing the bill and the steaks here are _excellent_ ), he expects to be simmering with frustration for an hour or two and then never see the sleazebag slouching opposite Cobb ever again.

He’s fifty percent correct.

“Mr. Eames,” he says as he shakes hands with the man, who did stand up when Arthur arrived but doesn’t look him in the eye; not like he’s intimidated by Arthur, but like he’s a bit distracted and mostly amused by him. He’s big under his hideous clothes, Arthur can tell: solid muscle and somehow _loud_ -looking, not at all what the forgers Arthur’s worked with before look like. Most forgers are either natural wallflowers or have learned to appear so. It’s not safe to stand out in their profession, least of all when you’re the one doing the actual con.

“Just Eames, thanks,” Eames replies, and sits back down a bit quicker than what’s generally considered polite. His posture is awful, and Arthur can only imagine the way his thighs must be sprawling under the table.

He coughs and sits down next to Cobb. “Have you ordered?”

“Not yet,” Cobb says.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” Eames adds. “I think you’ll find you’re a bit late.”

Arthur grits his teeth. “Sorry about that.”

The waiter must have been looking out for his arrival, because Arthur hasn’t been making painful small talk with Cobb for even a minute when he arrives with the menus.

While Eames is focusing on his menu, Arthur throws a skeptical glance at Dom, who looks enthusiastic, but then again, ever since he became a father, Dom’s looked mostly enthusiastic about everything. He decides to trust Dom’s judgment, though – so far he hasn’t let Arthur down.

*

He definitely should stop trusting Dom’s judgment.

Arthur has attended (and graduated from, with metaphorical honors) anger management classes, and these days he’s excellent at emotion regulation, but still – he wants to punch Eames. Badly. In the face. Or maybe the balls. They’ve been talking about the basics of the job – a Hungarian-born businessman who fears his partner is secretly plotting against him – in hushed voices for fifteen minutes, and so far Eames hasn’t had anything to offer except alternately amused and smug-sounding hums and huffs, that infuriating not-quite-smirk plastered on his face the entire time.

After the sixth time, Arthur snaps. “Well, _Mr. Eames_ , do you have anything specific on your mind?”

“Do either of you want my Brussels sprouts?” Eames asks cheerily. “Can’t stand the bloody things. I had a nanny once who made them every day, put me off for life.”

Arthur has absolutely had it with this man, and he doesn’t care how childish he sounds when he mutters, “I am going to chop your head off and plant a cactus in it. It’ll be a wonderful addition to my morning room.”

“You have a _morning room_?” Eames asks with unabashed delight, as if _that_ was the point, Jesus Christ.

Arthur turns to Cobb, who is looking at Eames’s plate like he’s seriously contemplating asking for his vegetables, and tries to take a steady breath. “Dom,” he says, “are you fucking with me right now? Is this payback for the Veracini job? Because I’ve told you, the Vespa was the _only way_ to –”

“While I would love to continue thinking about you on a Vespa,” Eames says with a leer that makes Arthur’s skin crawl, “I did have a point coming up, if you’d be so kind as to let me finish.”

“What,” Arthur says flatly. It’s not really a question, but Eames seems to take it as such, because he continues speaking. He turns the file to face Arthur and points at a picture of a slim woman in a light trench coat and thoroughly impractical-looking Manolo Blahniks.

“The mark’s kid’s nanny. They’re clearly having an affair, but she’s clearly also up to something. Have you looked at what that’s about?”

“ _What_?” Arthur repeats, and this time it’s definitely a question.

“You’ve been working too many back-to-back corporate jobs lately, it’s obvious from how you’ve focused all your research on the mark’s – what was his name, again? Oh, never mind – his business contacts. It’s a lovely thought, but reality is rarely so simple, not in our line of work at least. Nobody with a smidge of sense hires dream thieves for something that can be solved by looking at numbers, and what’s-his-name is clearly smart. If we’re needed, I’d say at least four times out of five the solution is so much easier to find using simple psychology – no offence meant, darling, I’m sure your research is impeccable. But even the seemingly coldest business magnate’s actions are, deep down, motivated by emotions, and emotions can be manipulated.”

Suddenly Eames’s posture changes. His back is straight and even though Arthur can’t see under the table, he somehow knows that Eames’s thighs aren’t sprawling anymore. When Arthur looks into his eyes, they’re looking straight at him, except now his face isn’t all languid amusement, but focused and serious.

“Example number one,” Eames continues, holding Arthur’s gaze, “body language. Her body is always turned toward his, until the moment he focuses his attention on something else. Then she crosses her legs, sometimes even her arms. The meaning of those is simple enough for anyone to understand. She’s wearing jewelry from shops we know he frequents, but only when she’s spending time with him. She’s wearing a completely different style in all the shots we have of her alone, or when she’s with friends, or just with the mark’s children. Not wearing your lover’s gifts except in his presence? Not a sign of a happy woman. Why is she continuing the relationship even though she clearly doesn’t like him? She’s a gorgeous woman, naturally beautiful and with an impeccable sense of style; she could get lots of rich men, and she’s wealthy enough to not really _need_ the position she has. Of course there could be an unrelated answer to all of this, but really, I think not.”

Eames pauses to take a sip from his glass of water, and then continues to pick at the vegetables on his plate with a disgusted look. “Seriously, this is putting me off my steak. Who serves _Brussels sprouts_ with a fifty-dollar steak?”

There’s what feels like a full minute’s silence before Cobb starts leafing through the papers. “Sounds like a good enough direction to go,” he says with a nod. “The nanny’s name is – hang on … yeah, her name is Beáta Szabó, however that’s pronounced, thirty-two years old. Eames, would you be ready to forge – oh, shit, no, she speaks only Hungarian, we’ll have to think of something else.”

“It’s no problem,” Eames says with a mouth full of steak, which is patently disgusting. “I took ten months off work last year to sharpen my Finno-Ugric languages, and I was already good enough at Hungarian. I’ll have to listen to a bit of local radio, and I’d like to get a phone tap to get a handle on their dialects while working on the forge, but I should definitely be able to pass as a native.”

Arthur tries to focus on taking notes while Cobb starts settling details about possible timelines with Eames. He can already see three potential problems with what they’re planning, but it’s good – better than good, actually. Infuriatingly brilliant.

After they’ve finished their steaks, Cobb asks if they want to stay for another glass of wine, but Eames is already signaling the waiter for a bill.

“Sorry,” Eames says at Cobb’s raised eyebrows, “I don’t drink on the job, and I need to start doing some prep work. See you both tomorrow.”

And with that, he gets up and leaves, posture and gait back to “smug asshole”.

Arthur is frozen in place, not sure whether his brain is going into overdrive or simply shutting down. He feels dizzy with … something, he’s not sure what. He coughs, blinks a couple of times.

Cobb has the nerve to look amused. “So,” he says, “what do you think?”

Arthur snorts. “I _think_ I want to stab him. But yeah, he’ll do.”

 

**2.**

 

Arthur is excellent at planning. Planning is literally half his job and not one single team would get their jobs done without someone on point – there are no one-man jobs, and two-man jobs are fifty percent point – so anyone who gives him shit for being meticulous can go and staple all their fingers together and choke on a spoon.

Arthur is excellent at planning, therefore he has penciled in fifteen minutes of dreamtime for making whatever polyester disaster of a suit Eames dreams up realistic. He’s prepared for – well, he tries not to think too hard about what he’s prepared for. Something with four separate patterns and sprinkles of salmon.

Now that he thinks about it, he’s not sure whether fifteen minutes will be enough. He drops his head between his hands and massages his temples.

“Ready when you are,” Eames says as he throws his to-go cup (iced latte, sometimes with vanilla syrup but not today) into the trash can. Arthur nods and begins to unravel the spools of tubing from the PASIV. He can feel the first pinpricks of a migraine.

He closes his eyes to the sight of Eames falling asleep on the dark red armchair in the hotel room they’re working in, and opens them to a dressing room with a rug in the exact same shade. There are bare light bulbs above a vanity table and velvet drapes that appear to serve no actual purpose, but no Eames. Arthur reaches out to touch the drapes; they’re incredibly soft, and he has to resist the urge to press his cheek against the fabric.

Someone knocks on the closed door, and Arthur reflexively drops his hand from the drapes and rests it carefully on the handgun in his belt holster. The door opens and Eames steps in, looking … not like Arthur had expected.

The tuxedo Eames is wearing is _beautiful_.

He looks like he’s stepped right off a Gucci runway, every detail in his ensemble perfectly calculated, from shoes to watch to a pair of aviator sunglasses that should look tacky indoors but somehow make him look like he’s getting ready to walk a red carpet. He’s even added a pocket chain, and Arthur isn’t sure whether the sly detail is calculated to bring the observer’s eye to his hips or not, but that’s definitely the effect.

The suit’s fabric is clearly of excellent quality, and way the waistcoat is cut in to his waist and defines his chest makes Arthur want to grab him by the jacket’s lapels (peaked, satin facings, _gorgeous_ ) and pull him close. It also fits him like only a bespoke suit can, and for a moment Arthur is lost in imagining Eames in a proper suit fitting, surrounded by fabrics and mirrors, some faceless man kneeling in front of him as he measures Eames’s inseam, and –

Arthur lets out a little cough and hopes to God he isn’t blushing. “You actually know how to dress, Mr. Eames. I’m surprised.”

“Arthur,” Eames all but purrs, the absolute fucker. “Condescending as ever, I see. You look delicious.”

“Thanks,” Arthur says in what he hopes is a perfectly deadpan voice, trying not to self-consciously smooth down his own lapels. “I’m glad you approve. Now, let’s go over the plan one more time.”

 

**3.**

 

When Arthur had thought about how their first kiss would happen – and privately he didn’t even pretend not to have thought about it, denial was rarely helpful and he prided himself on his competence in most aspects of life – he imagined something like this: him and Eames high on adrenaline after a job gone either horribly wrong or perfectly right, a hotel bar, sly smirks and raised eyebrows, being slammed up against the wall of the elevator on their way up to someone’s room. Sweat-slick skin rubbing against each other, loud orgasms within fifteen minutes.

The reality is so far from this that Arthur almost laughs when the kiss finally happens.

They’re spending four weeks working out of Stockholm, a mind-numbingly boring but well-paying job for an eccentric Finnish millionaire who wants the secret ingredient in his favorite salty licorice candy extracted from the company’s CEO. 

Sometimes Arthur truly despairs of what his career has come to.

He is alone in the office their client has rented out for them in Slussen, and has been staring at the same page on his laptop for almost half an hour, an article about the chemistry of ammonium chloride. Why anybody would want candy flavoring out of the product from the reaction of hydrochloric acid and ammonia is something he’s never going to understand. Arthur hates chemistry, he hates salty licorice, and he hates, _hates_ thinking about all the pretty blonde women hitting on Eames when he’s out doing … whatever he’s doing in the evenings when there’s nothing pressing for him to do for the job. Arthur isn’t sure he actually wants to know.

He’s still frowning at the screen when his phone emits a shrill beeping sound, alerting him that someone’s just opened the downstairs door and is on their way up. After a minute, Eames appears in the doorway and grins. “Knew I’d find you here, you nutter. Come on, I’ve got something I want to show you and we need to hurry.”

Arthur groans. “Eames, I really don’t –”

“Hush now,” Eames interrupts and comes over. He closes the laptop’s lid and just continues grinning, smelling faintly of beer and fresh sweat. “You can take a break, I swear it won’t take more than an hour and it’s going to be entirely worth it. You’ll be back here with your research before the clock strikes twelve. Come on, darling, please?”

Arthur sighs and pretends to think about it, just out of principle, even though he knows there’s actually few things he wants more than to get out right now. It makes Eames hip-check him and put his hand on his shoulder, like Arthur knew it would.

“Fine. But one single minute past midnight and it’ll be on your head.”

Eames grins and bounces – actually, literally _bounces_ – to get Arthur’s coat. “You won’t regret it.”

The night is chilly, with temperatures far too close to freezing even though it’s almost May, but their brisk pace and Eames’s constant chatter keep Arthur’s mind occupied. They take a footpath out of Slussen and on to the bridge crossing over to Gamla Stan, in the middle of which Eames stops and turns to lean his elbows against the railing.

“And now we wait,” he says, pulling Arthur in by the hand to stand next to him, and Arthur idly notes his own surprise at Eames having smaller hands than he himself does. “Shouldn’t be more than a few minutes,” Eames continues, “but these things always start late so I apologize if it takes longer.”

“And just what’re we waiting for?” Arthur asks, but he can’t bring himself to sound impatient. Instead, he hears his vowels roll in a way that he rarely lets them; he sounds like he’s fifteen and back at his mama’s place instead of on the wrong side of his thirtieth birthday and doing research for a spot of corporate espionage.

Eames raises his eyebrows but doesn’t comment on the slip-up. “You’ll see.”

They fall into silence, and while it’s not exactly a comfortable one, it’s not awkward. Arthur tries to think of something, anything, to break it; he’s not ready for any kind of implications.

“You been in Stockholm before?” he finally settles on asking, and Eames lets out a short laugh.

“You know I have,” he replies. “Or if you really don’t, you’re a much poorer researcher than I gave you credit for.”

Arthur huffs. “Excuse me for trying to make conversation.”

“No, it’s all right,” Eames says and bumps against his shoulder, “and yeah, I have. My sister lives here.”

Arthur nods, and fiddles with his cuff for a while before saying anything else. “You seen her yet? While we’ve been here, I mean?”

Arthur can feel rather than see or hear the small puff of air that Eames lets out. “She doesn’t know I’m here. I can’t … I try to avoid lying to her, so I don’t visit her unless I’m actually here for the sole purpose of visiting her. ”

“Yeah. I – I get that. My ma and brother don’t even know that I spend most of my time in the same city as them.” He fakes a small laugh, knowing Eames will know. “God, it makes me feel like an ass.”

“We’re a matching set, then.”

Arthur doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just hums and leans over the railing to look at the water below, partly because it’s beautiful and partly to give himself something to focus on. He can’t bring himself to look Eames in the eyes right now.

Suddenly Arthur hears a series of loud _crack_ s in the distance. He almost ducks down out of reflex, until he hears Eames let out a delighted laugh. “Just in time,” Eames says, and he’s not looking at Arthur, but up at the sky in front of them, where starbursts of white and green fireworks seem to be floating.

“Oh, wow,” Arthur breathes out, and he doesn’t care if he sounds like an idiot, because it’s beautiful. It’s nothing like the fireworks they have at home on the Fourth, but it doesn’t matter because he wasn’t expecting any at all. He never knows what to expect with Eames, except a job well done and a small hurt in his chest at each goodbye. He wonders whether Eames will stay with his sister once they’re done with this job. He wonders if Eames knew about his love for fireworks when he brought him here, or if this was just a coincidence. He finds he rather likes not knowing, for all it makes something ache inside him.

There’s a series of flashes in all white; it looks like someone’s dusted glitter over the sky and it’s _gorgeous_ , and he can’t help but to say it out loud.

“Right? They have them every Walpurgis Night. I know they’re objectively speaking nothing special, but I try to come here whenever I can. Usually I’m with Annie, but – well, that’s all right.”

Arthur smiles and looks at Eames. “Thanks for dragging me out.”

Eames’s face is soft when he turns to face Arthur. “My pleasure, pet.”

They look at each other without saying anything, until a fresh burst of cracks distracts them, and Arthur turns to watch blue and yellow circles expand over the sky. It’s not the same companionable silence that they’re both used to, though, and suddenly Arthur’s not sure whether Eames is watching him or the fireworks. He doesn’t dare turn his head to check.

Without saying anything, Eames shifts a little so that their shoulders are pressed together. Arthur can feel the heat of his body through their jackets. He is nervous in a way that he hasn’t been nervous for years.

Eames brings his left hand to Arthur’s hip, and Arthur is sure that Eames can hear his breath hitching even over the crackle coming from Skansen.

“Arthur.”

Eames’s voice is closer than Arthur thought it would be, and Arthur gives himself two seconds, just two, to let the adrenaline rush through him and to focus on the feeling that something is going to happen, to ride out the nerves and turn along the axis of Eames’s hand.

Arthur looks up, and Eames’s eyes flicker between Arthur’s eyes and his lips.

“I’d – I’m going to kiss you now, if that’s all right.”

Even though he knew something was coming, Eames’s words make Arthur feel like his brain is short-circuiting, and for a moment he’s not sure whether his legs are going to hold him up. He can feel Eames’s hand shaking where he’s still holding on to Arthur’s hip, and somehow it gives him the courage to lift his own hand up to Eames’s neck. “Yeah”, he whispers, and Eames doesn’t wait for more before leaning forward and pressing his lips against Arthur’s.

The setting and the _years_ of waiting might be playing tricks on his mind, but Arthur is fairly sure it’s the most perfect kiss he’s ever had. Eames’s lips are soft and his mouth is warm, and the hand at Arthur’s hip pulls them together, as close as they can get with two layers of clothes on, and Arthur has to fight to hold back a whimper.

They stand there for long minutes, pressed against each other on the bridge with fireworks still popping and crackling in the sky, and for all that the kiss is slow, their breaths are shaky against each other’s when they finally pull apart.

“Eames,” Arthur says quietly, their foreheads pressed together, “if you’re fucking with me right now, I’m going to take you three levels under and force-feed you nothing but Brussels sprouts for a year.”

Eames puffs out a startlingly loud laugh that Arthur can feel against his skin. It makes him shiver, and he hates that he can tell that Eames notices.

“Darling,” he says and kisses Arthur again, and somehow that’s enough for now.

 

**4.**

 

The fourth time involves Eames changing out of his rain-soaked shirt and Arthur being so distracted by the memory of the last time he saw Eames without a shirt that he drops a full plate of food on the warehouse floor in front of their entire team. He doesn't like to think about it.

 

**5.**

 

Eames has a studio in their apartment ( _their_ apartment, and oh, how even after a year, thinking those words makes Arthur twitch with excited and slightly terrified nerves), a lovely south-facing room with enormous windows and off-white walls that are liberally splashed with paint and … stuff. Arthur has no idea what some of the things Eames works with are called. Eames would tell him if he asked, of course, but he rather likes the mystery of it.

There are tables and chairs filled with different kinds of paint and lacquer, but only three canvases, one of which is still blank. Before they started dating, Arthur always assumed that Eames was primarily a painter – had imagined him surrounded by abstract blotches of color and dozens and dozens of brushes, paint streaked all over his body – but that turned out to be far from the truth.

(Eames had laughed when Arthur had first told him, when Arthur had been standing, awestruck, at the doorway of his then-studio for the first time. “Petal, I forge documents and the occasional poker chip. I can draw, but I’m not Monet,” he’d said, and given Arthur a light kiss on the temple. “Now come on, I want to show you what I’m working on.”)

Most of the space is taken up by unfinished sculptures, small and large, with subjects ranging everywhere from life-sized Labrador Retrievers to a set of perfect spheres of whose symbolism Eames had spoken of at length. There’s a two-foot-long marble dick in the corner, with a pair of disturbingly realistic balls. Arthur absolutely refuses to ask about it.

He doesn’t usually come into Eames’s study alone, but today he’s looking for his favorite watch – the one Eames hates and has started hiding into more and more creative places because he thinks he’s funny, and Arthur can’t find it anywhere else in the apartment. If Eames has hidden his watch in a tub of lacquer, there are going to be fucking _consequences_.

Arthur starts poking around, looking inside drawers and pencil cases and other miscellaneous boxes. It’s when he starts looking under the sheets covering some of the works that he finally finds the watch. It’s fastened on the wrist of a sculpture of a pair of hands in the corner of the studio, on top of a newspaper and partially covered by the messy piles of gauze that Eames has _insisted_ are absolutely necessary for a project.

He’s just about to unfasten the clasp and is already thinking of a clever text to send Eames, when he stops and takes a closer look at the sculpture. It’s not just a pair of hands like he’d thought at first glance; it’s the hands of two different people, standing on the tips of their longest fingers, pinkies loosely hooked together. Something about the hands makes him inspect them more closely: they’re clearly the hands of two men, life-sized and with the slightest illusion of hair where the wrists cut off, the one wearing the watch is a bit larger than the other, and –

Realization hits him like a freight train. It’s not just a pair of hands, it’s _his and Eames’s hands_. It’s so obvious now that he’s not sure how he didn’t spot it immediately. Eames’s hand, smaller than his own, with its thick fingers and square nails, wonky right pinky curled around Arthur’s left. And Arthur’s own hand, reproduced perfectly in marble – he just stares at it, because it really is perfect, in every single detail, down to size and nails and visible tendons and the light dusting of hair carved into it, and somehow even the positioning of the fingers looks like _him_. He drops down on his knees and lifts his hand next to its replica to compare, and he can’t spot a difference in anything but color.

Suddenly Arthur is grateful that he’s already down on the floor, because he feels like his legs wouldn’t work even if he tried. The fact that someone pays close enough attention to him to be able to make him into a literal _work of art_ , that it’s _Eames_ , that it’s _their_ hands, _together_ , casually, like seeing it isn’t the single most astonishing moment of Arthur’s _entire life –_

Arthur lets the watch stay where it is on his – not his, but still _his_ – wrist, covers the sculpture with its sheet, and tries to breathe.

 

**+1.**

 

It’s really not that easy to surprise Eames, either.

He tries to hide it as well as possible, because, well. Arthur might wear his competence as armor, daring anyone to question him and leveling hilariously specific threats at anyone who does, but Eames prefers to be underestimated. Condescension and calm deadliness might make people talk, but it takes a lot of effort and always holds the risk of being lied to, and honestly, why make things harder than needed? Buy a man a couple of drinks and he’ll tell you things willingly, no need to attract attention by buying bullets in bulk. It’s easier to be the con man, slick and charming and always, _always_ underestimated.

So, no: it is not easy to surprise Eames.

He had known from the very beginning, from that very first time in the restaurant with the good steaks and bad vegetables, that there would be no one else for him. Arthur had shaken his hand and stolen his breath and Eames had thought _oh, darling, I’ve been waiting for you_ , and that had been it. In all honesty, Eames tries not to think about it too much, because the power Arthur has over him is _terrifying_ , and Eames might be in love but he is also used to avoiding disappointment by not keeping his expectations – about jobs, about love, about anything – very high.

So when he and Arthur are waiting in line at Costa on a cold February afternoon and Arthur says, “I’m pretty sure you’re it for me,” casually, like he’s just contemplating what kind of espresso he wants, Eames’s brain simply … stops.

“Pardon me?” he replies, because he must have heard incorrectly (and because his instinctive reaction when confused is still politeness, like he’s at his mother’s garden party and is not a thirty-five-year-old career criminal millionaire, what the _fuck_ ).

“You’re it,” Arthur repeats, and Eames can see his already weather-pinkened cheeks turn a shade darker (which means that the tips of his ears are pink as well, and even in his confused haze, Eames is frustrated that he can’t see them under Arthur’s knit cap) even as he keeps his eyes turned toward the specials board. “You’re – I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I think I’m right in thinking that the feeling’s mutual, but I just wanted to, uh, clarify. In case you were wondering.”

Eames can’t think of a single thing to say. Every word in existence seems to have left his brain, and he’s absolutely mortified to realize that his eyes are watering a bit. He coughs, tries and fails to think of something to say, and tries and fails to remember without moving which pocket of his jeans he’d put his totem in this morning.

After fifteen seconds of complete silence, Arthur finally turns to look at him, and the flush has spread from his cheeks to his neck. “Eames,” Arthur says, fond and exasperated and utterly lovely, “you’re going to have to say something.”

“I –” Eames tries and pauses, coughs again and blinks furiously. Arthur is standing there, one eyebrow raised now, and he is so completely _perfect_ that Eames can barely breathe. “Yeah,” Eames says, and if his voice is rough and his vision is a bit blurred, he can’t be bothered to care too much. “Yeah, all right,” he says.

Arthur smiles and laces his fingers with Eames’s before turning back around and pretending to continue reading the specials board. “Your turn to pay,” he says, “and by that I don’t mean ‘pickpocket me and use my credit card,’ you cheapskate.”

Eames laughs and squeezes his hand. He sneaks Arthur’s wallet out of his pocket anyway; after all, he’s got the rest of his life to pay him back.

**Author's Note:**

> I was originally going to specify the years in which these are set, but could not for the life of me figure out whether there were Walpurgis Night fireworks in Skansen in 2011, so I gave up. Oh, and I’m super aware of the fact that the bridge crossing from Slussen to Gamla Stan is in reality anything but romantic and filled with people if there’s fireworks, so… This can be a special AU!Stockholm, yeah? :hides behind cat:
> 
> Come say hi to me on [tumblr](https://dandalf-the-disco.tumblr.com/)!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] 5 Times Eames Surprised Arthur (+ 1 Time It Was the Other Way Around)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12553060) by [flosculatory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flosculatory/pseuds/flosculatory)




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